It’s a jigsaw puzzle this recovery lark.  The starting piece has to be the food.  Whichever school of thought you subscribe to in terms of how eating disorders develop, I think it makes sense that food needs to be the starting point for recovery.  The brain needs to be well nourished to enable the deep self-reflection that I certainly have found is necessary to get better.  It’s a massive milestone therefore, to nail the food pieces in place.

More recently I’ve been focussing on the pieces of the puzzle around the edge.  I’ve learned how to be silly and have fun.  I set a goal in the early days of treatment to dance around the kitchen.  This felt a long way out of reach with no such desire inside me; not one iota. Now it’s a daily occurrence with my favourite so far having been ‘Boom Shake the Room’ whilst frying eggs for my eldest’s breakfast, as he looked on unperturbed having gotten used to such morning antics.  

I’ve rediscovered getting lost in a fiction book, and not one of my growing collection from Frieda McFadden has, as yet, failed to surprise me at the end.

After my last minute attendance at a cacao ceremony for a giggle if nothing else, I now savour my morning ritual of drinking ceremonial grade cacao whilst looking out at the sunrise and thinking heart opening thoughts.

I’ve forged incredible new friendships through the sharing of raw and honest recovery journeys and I’ve also reignited friendships that I otherwise may have lost for good.  I’ve revelled in the joy of these social connections. 

My immediate family are all feeling the benefits from the light of my presence having been rekindled.  I’ve shared charming moments crafting with my youngest and watching movies with my eldest. I think my husband has simply been thrilled not to have his head bitten off at every exchange.

All has been going swimmingly.

*CURVEBALL SPOILER ALERT*.

With end of the treatment programme a breath away, I have in the last few days, been reflecting on my overall progress to date and contemplating the work left to be done; an essential part of the process to ensure I stay on track.  I think I still fear weight gain.  I know I still fear weight gain.  Weekly weigh in is still a kick in the teeth, with a decent gain making me feel shit and a minimal gain granting me permission to eat something a bit naughtier that night.  Seeing old photos of myself when heavier continues to provoke uncomfortable feelings of hating the way I look in them.  And then I feel frustrated with myself for thinking such thoughts.  Although I have massively reduced my exercise down to a bit of yoga / Pilates once a day and a dog walk, I am very aware that whilst these are ‘normal’ habits, if I pull apart the function of this exercise, there remain elements of dependency and compulsion.

Why?  I believe my neural rewiring is incomplete.  Whilst I have largely accepted and adjusted to the quantity of food prescribed my meal plan, I think I have taken my eye off the ball in terms of facing my fear and I continue to restrict in small ways.  I have become complacent.  I have been allowing myself to get away with having a cup of tea instead of a hot chocolate the night before weigh in. I’ve been continuing to weigh out my portions of cereal to make sure I don’t give myself too much.  I have been ‘bravely’ swapping my snacks knowing that the alternative is probably not quite as nutritionally dense.  I have been doing (minimal) exercise on all but every morning of the week, knowing that if I was told not to, my anxiety would still be very high, but it’s ok because a little bit of exercise is normal.  You get the picture.  My fellow patients and I have been repeatedly reassured that once you start to weight restore, it takes a while for the brain to catch up and for such thoughts to settle down, but they will.  I’m not so sure it’s quite that simple and I do believe that you can weight restore to a ‘healthy’ weight and yet not recover from the eating disorder.  This is because an eating disorder is also about the thoughts, the rigid rules and the compensatory behaviour alongside the weight. Both need to be addressed in order to recover and I don’t think the thoughts will go away by themselves.  The neural pathways that they follow need to be rewired and this requires active challenge of every single thought.  

I thought I was ready to go back to work but if I’m honest with myself, there is still significant hard graft to do to complete the recovery jigsaw.  I need to pull some of my attention away from those pieces around the periphery; they still need to be there as integral, but I need to focus back on facing my fears.  I need to knuckle down and let no shitty thought pass by ignored.  It’s time to tighten the rules.  Just like the kids now have a zero tolerance policy to mobile phones in school (hurrah!), I need to have zero tolerance for any thought that is not 100% recovery focused.  Any time I think of food, I need to eat. I need to get up and decide that today is the day for a PJ day and do absolutely nothing other than read a book and watch the tele.  I need to not exercise for a week. 

I have made some phenomenal changes but it’s time to ramp it up a gear to make sure the remaining puzzle pieces don’t get lost.